ZelGan Week 2016
by kiboeme
Summary: A collection of brief one-shots written for the first four prompts of ZelGan week 2016: Clouded Jewelry, The Hunt, Rare Flowers, and Undeath. Various content warnings apply and are noted at the start of each chapter.
1. Day I: Clouded Jewelry

"The mythos of the Gerudo in Hyrule is as old as the race itself. Tucked behind a sparse stone fortress nestled deep in the bosom of their homeland, they have always held a certain mystique for the Hyrulian people.

"It's said that the eyes of all men were once mirrors. The Hylians who worshiped the goddesses of the sky reflected blue, and the humans' connection to the earth lent them brown, green, and hazel. But the Gerudo, they say, spent their days lusting after gold and the riches of others, and so their eyes turned to gold as an eternal symbol of their greed.

"Of course, there are many things said about the Gerudo, and few of them are very true. Some tell of their pagan goddess bequeathing the priestesses with the wicked power of the desert. The Gerudo are not human, they whisper, they turn to sand upon their death and choke the lungs of their killer. They can unleash the heat of their land by meeting a man's gaze. They can transform into snakes and have venom at their lips even in their human form…. The stories are foolish, of course. Still, I can't help but love the legends of the Gerudo's golden eyes."

He fixed her with that hot gaze, his irises swallowing her whole. His eyes were like jewels. Jewels filled with too many expressions to identify just one. There was sorrow, and there was also danger. Affection and agony, glimpses of memories and experiences culled from centuries of a life lived on repeat. Ganon had eyes as bottomless as his vitality.

"Though," she murmured as she shifted closer, taking his face to cradle between her palms, "I think I prefer my own myths." His eyes narrowed in question, and a gentle smile came to her lips as she wove her own tale.

"An old proverb claims that the eyes are windows to the soul. I say all men once saw through mirrors, and eventually, those mirrors came to reflect the people's hearts." She slid one hand down to his chest and pressed gently there. "The pious Hylians heard the wisdom of the gods and their eyes became blue with their knowledge. The humans warred, or they had the courage to stand up to those who did, so they bear brown and green. The Gerudo were not pious, nor warmongering, nor brave against either of them. But they _were_ _ **pure**_. They knew the world's hardships and the cruelty of the earth, and yet they prized it. While the humans battled and the Hylians prayed, the Gerudo cultured lives of joy and love. And so slowly, their eyes became gold. Their eyes grew to mirror their beauty, their value, their light.

"These are the eyes of the Gerudo I know. The people you fight so hard to avenge."

She shifted her thumb to sweep over his cheekbone. It came away damp, glistening like his eyes. The Queen leaned forward so their foreheads would meet. "They may be scattered, their bloodline and culture diluted to near nothing, but their proud eyes still wink at us from every corner of Hyrule. And some day, I know in my heart of hearts, they will return in a blaze of wonder."

Both were silent for a long moment, simply breathing each other in and feeling the warmth of another body pressed close. Aching loss spread between them, seeping from his body into hers. He breathed out the pain of surviving, and he inhaled her guilty regret.

"Not all that glitters is gold, my queen." His voice, so deep, laced with a solemnity heavier than the castle itself. Zelda looked down, away from her lover. Her eyelids slid down, shutting away the emotion her eyes would betray.

"No," she agreed. Her voice was strained with heartbreak. "But thanks to my actions all those centuries ago, faint glimmers will have to do."

" _I'm sorry_."


	2. Day II: The Hunt

Zelda launched herself through the hedge grow and was running from the moment her small foot hit the ground again. She ignored the scratches the briar thorns left on her skin and the rips then tore on her dress and continued to pelt forward. She plowed into another bush and skidded to a stop on the other side, miraculously staying on her feet despite the abrupt halt. She heaved for breath for a moment as the person she had come to find turned around. He gave her a confused look as he glanced over her tattered form.

"Ganon," she gasped, her eyes wide and frightened, "you have to run right now!"

"Zelda? What?"

"They're coming for you, Gan. They're going to kill you." She trembled as she recalled the inspiration for her flight here. She had taken a detour on her way to her lessons on a whim, choosing to walk past the informal parlor instead of her usual route. She had heard Ganon's name spat angrily and paused, wondering who was upset with her friend. Then she heard her father's voice as he called for the Gerudo's head.

"What? Why?"

"I don't know!" Her voice keened into a whine, taut with desperation. "I didn't stay to ask. I had to warn you. The soldiers are in the way here right now. We have to get out of Hyrule immediately." He gave the teen a grin look as he processed her claims, then extended a hand to her.

"Let's go."

They ran together for the stables—they had little chance of successful escape in foot. Just outside the doors stood two guards. They were nameless and practically faceless, people whom they otherwise would have forgotten within moments. But today the soldiers raided their swords at Ganon. He released Zelda's hand to draw his rapier. Zelda flinched and cried out softly at the sound of clashing metal. It rang loud in her ears as a flash of a dream flitted through her mind's eye: Ganon, coated in sweat and ash and blood, trading blows with a Hylian man against a backdrop of decimation. The Princess hid her face from the small battle before her in reality, shielding herself from glimpses of the future her dreams had warned of.

A warm hand on her shoulder jolted Zelda from her terror. Ganon smiled down at her fondly. His blade was sheathed. Zelda avoided glancing at the fallen men as they darted into the building.

They both mounted Ganon's massive black stallion. The horse had always made the Princess uneasy, but she had set her own mare loose in Hyrule Field as a girl. Ganon nudged the horse straight into a full canter. They emerged into the fields within minutes. Zelda was forced to squeeze her eyes shut again to vanish the mirage of an over large arrow protruding from Ganon's spine.

Images from her dreams haunted her throughout the days they journeyed. At night, the visions themselves worsened and became more corporeal as she and Ganon drew closer to the desert. There was blood, war, fire, terrible destruction. Amid the grim images were glimpses of the desert, and it was there the two of them pressed toward. It was in that place Ganon would be safe. It took them three days to reach the border.

"Zelda, you have to stay here in Hyrule."

She looked up at him sadly, but nodded. "I know." She bowed her head. "I will."

"Your soldiers are close behind us. They should find you before dusk today."

"I can have them take me home. They won't follow you then."

He nodded at her and then went still. Both were motionless for a moment. Without any sign before it, Ganon leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her in a ferocious hug. Zelda pressed herself against his warmth with hot tears leaking from her eyes.

"I'll miss you more than anything," she sniffled. He broke their embrace to bring his hands to her shoulders, pressing her away from him just enough to gently kiss her forehead. A twinge licked down her spine and stomach at the touch of his lips to her skin, an unfamiliar reaction. Her breath caught, but Ganon didn't seem to notice.

"I will miss you too, Zelda."

He gave her upper arms a gentle squeeze before stepping away. Neither of them said anything more. Ganon took the reins of his stallion and mounted, then kicked into motion. Zelda watched her best friend–and the man who perhaps would have been her lover one day–vanish into the sanctuary of the desert. She stood there until the cloud of dust behind him faded to naught. Only then did she put all the pieces together the way she had been intended to.

Her heart was no longer heavy. It was cold. For the desert was not what would save Ganon from the violent hell Zelda saw within her dreams. It was what started it. Zelda had just fed him to fate.


	3. Day III: Rare Flowers

Ganondorf gave a gentle pull to the Princess' arm, hauling their latched hands closer to where he stood at the top of a ridge. The boost was all Zelda needed; the toe of her boot caught the ledge she'd been trying to reach, and with that, she had the leverage to scramble up beside Ganondorf's feet. She wiped her brow as she stood. He met her gaze and smiled before he moved forward again.

"Ganon, how much further are we going?" she called to him between shallow pants. The setting sun glowed warmly on her back, yet he showed no sign of turning back yet. It had taken them hours to get this far. Their return would have to be in the dangerous dark even now. Ganondorf stopped his easy lope to look back at her and grin. Zelda furrowed her brow. She knew that grin. It meant the King had something up his sleeves.

"Don't back out now. We're almost there." He kept watching her until her silhouetted form began sliding down the slope to him. When she reached him he grabbed her hand again, forcing the Princess to keep up with his long strides. "See that hilltop there?" He gestured to a rocky dune a few dozen meters away. "We're going to the top of it."

It was dusk when they reached their destination. Zelda collapsed melodramatically the instant Ganondorf released her hand. He remained standing, chuckling at her fallen form.

"Come on, I know you have more stamina than that," he teased. She swiped a leg at his feet. Ganon easily sidestepped the attack. With a loud groan, Zelda hauled herself upright again and started to grumble. Before more than a few words had left her mouth, however, a sharp hiss from Ganondorf silenced her. She shot him a venomous look of outrage that he paid no mind, instead merely cover her head. Zelda fussed silently with the fabric until she got it draped over her shoulders. Her attention latched back on to Ganondorf once she was better situated.

"What are we—"

"Shh!" He silenced her again, leaving the Princes frozen mid-speech with her jaw dangling open. He looked at her, now smiling. "Listen… can you hear it?"

She finally paused and took a look at their surroundings. They were on a rise, a peak that circled unevenly around a valley sloping gently away from their feet. The ground was hard-packed, though gentle breezes still shifted thin layers of sand over the earth. It was smooth, pristine, except for the handful of massive stones that stretched up from the valley floor. They were difficult to see clearly in the fast-fading twilight, but the Princess thought she could see swirls etched into the rock nearest them.

"Are these… monuments?"

"We don't know," Ganondorf replied softly. "They have been here a very, very long time. Some think they've been here since the desert has."

A breeze pushed through the landscape, swirling the sand around. Over everything, a gentle sigh echoed. It was melodic and peaceful, and it timed with the wind. Zelda's eyes widened in wonder. "Is that noise from the rocks?"

"Yeah. The pillars are singing."

For many minutes, they both went silent to listen to the tranquil song. The sun sank further below the horizon. The sunset clouds cleared themselves from the sky. While Zelda was contently listening to the stone's music, Ganondorf was fixated on the stars. He stood unmoving until some indiscernible sign appeared in the brightening constellations.

Ganondorf suddenly bent down to grab Zelda's shoulders. Grasping tightly in his hands, he lifted her to her feet, then wrapped one arm around her waist to tuck her close to him. They faced the valley now.

It began with no predicate, a thin trickle of light sliding down the face of one stone. Zelda watched, mesmerized, as the light touched the earth and began to slide over it. As if that contact had been a cue, more paths of light sprung from the tips of the other rocks. One by one streams formed, arcing down the rock in hypnotic patterns. Where they touched the ground, pools of light like liquid silver bled from the base of the stones. They spread outward, slipping down the slope and setting the night aglow. The patterns traced on the rocks brightened when the pools met in the center of the valley—complete, an ancient language carved in light glowed from the monuments.

A breath of wind sang through the valley, sounding of a thousand voices. At its call the vast pool of light _opened_ , each point of glow a single perfect flower. Their fragrance filled the air, as heavenly as the flowers themselves. Another breath of wind swept through. And then the world exhaled, lifting every flower from the valley up into the air and scattering its petals as all were swept away. The wind twirled around the flowers as it took them, carrying into the air a speckled trail of light.

As the rocks faded away again, Zelda turned her head to meet Ganondorf's gaze. Her wet eyes were wide with wonder.

"What was that? It's so… beautiful."

"Life," he answered simply. "The Gerudo believe that this spot is the center of the world and the source of all life. It created this desert because life cannot be created, only reshaped. Around this site is a land of death because such great creation has to be culled from somewhere. We Gerudo stay in the deserts because we want to protect this valley. The thousand souls in those petals borne by the world's breath carry hope, vitality, and renewal." He paused and drew her closer, pressing their chests together. "And love."

The King leaned over to kiss his beloved. Their lips met with more hesitance than ever before, gentle and sensitive, reverent of the miracle that produced all life. The couple parted just as slowly and paused inches apart, gazing at one another. The silent exchange only broke when a single glowing petal fell between their faces. A waft of air blew it to settle upon their clasped hands, where its glow melted into them like a snowflake and its fragrance bloomed into the air between them. A devious smirk took Ganondorf's features again as he glanced at their joined hands and the Princess attached.

"It would seem the world approves of us."

Mother Nature protected them that night, her life's cradle shielding the two humans from cold and predators as they created life of their own. Zelda dreamed of flowers and gleaming destinies that night, cradled nude in her lover's proud arms.


	4. Day IV: Undeath

_Unable are the loved to die._  
 _\- Emily Dickinson_

Waking up was hell.

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, every inch of her body tensing against the pain that ached deep in her bones. The stiffness only placed more pressure on her, though, and the deep-seated twinge slowly quickly intensified into a stab of agony rippling through her from head to toe. With a gasp and a whimpered moan, she relaxed again. It was this noise that summoned someone to her side.

"Zel? Zelda? Are you… are you…" The voice was so familiar, but in her present state, she wasn't able to recall to whom it belonged. But "Zelda", that word held meaning to her.

"'Zelda'," she echoed softly, "my… name? Yeah. My name."

"How are you feeling?"

Zelda turned her head toward the speaker's voice, wincing at the painful result of the massive effort. Her eyelids strained for a moment, trying to open. They wouldn't. "I can't open my eyes."

"Here, let me." She twitched as a large finger—probably a thumb—brushed gently at her eyelids. There was a tugging sensation and a few pinpricks of pain before the hand drew away. "Now try."

This time she was successful. Her vision was fuzzy at first, but as it cleared she was able to make out the person leaning over her. With her mental functions slowly piecing themselves back together she was able to recognize him clearly now. A tired smile spread over her face, one which he hesitantly returned.

"Zelda?" he ventured. She blinked slowly at him.

"Hey, Ganondorf."

She sat up a few hours later. As she began stretching out her sore muscles, Ganondorf left the lacy lavender bedchamber to fetch her some nourishment. When he returned, the Princess had a thousand questions on her lips. The first and foremost of them, however, was the one which would pierce directly to the heart of all her current queries. She stopped her movements when he came back through the door, instead arranging herself in a comfortable sitting position while he set down the refreshments. The moment he turned around to face her, a very childlike desire for approval in his eyes, Zelda threw her question at him.

"What happened to me? Why do I feel like this?"

Ganondorf's lightheartedness quickly faded. A darker emotion rose to replace it, a heady cocktail of dread and moral distress. "Well," he began, drawing out the word to stall for time, "you got sick. You had something very bad, something that was killing you. We had doctors from all over the kingdom and from other nations examine you. None of them could figure out what was wrong or how we could fix you, so I started doing my own research. I only found one thing, but I didn't think it would be useful. And then… then the worst thing happened and it was." He took a breath. "You died. Everybody wore black and it rained outside. You were cold to touch. You were dead."

Her breath was thin; she didn't remember any of that, but for so many doctors from so many places to have come required weeks, if not months. "So then… how am I here now?"

"The one magic spell I found was only useful on a dead person. I brought you back to life."

* * *

She had been fine with it then, even leaning forward to wrap her stiff arms around his neck and squeeze him close to her. How different that was from the veiled figure who sat beside him now. He had been so delighted to feel her warm after weeks and weeks of clammy skin or the chill of death when he embraced her. Recovery took her a fortnight, and then she was back to normal. The looks she gave to anyone asking how she was alive deterred almost everyone from asking less than a month thereafter. People forgot about her resurrection, and frankly, he nearly did too. The first few weeks he pampered her endlessly until she asked him to stop, and then things returned to normal.

 _Too normal_ , he would hiss at himself in the mirror all too frequently thereafter. _You stopped appreciating her_. _You forgot again that she's mortal_.

Zelda first died when her body was eighteen. Five years later, when she was twenty-three, she had been sparring with a Sheikah companion when a blade gouged deep into her shoulder. The stubborn woman tore off the bulky wrappings for appearances' sake at some ball function, and in the twenty-four hours before she returned to the healers to clean it again it got infected.

Ganondorf swore he would never get the image out of his head—Zelda's shoulder, the skin shiny red and stretched taut over the swelling that surrounded a crust of black and yellow. The veins spreading away from that spot colored black, carrying toxin along the fastest route to her heart.

Cleansing her body of the poison was harder than banishing the illness from her had been. The alchemy was intricate, the magic complicated. But he did it. He slaved for hours crafting the perfect glyphs and spells to patch her up and bring her back. The first time she sat up this time, she laughed. She still could not remember anything leading up to her end, but she said she knew he wouldn't let her abandon him permanently. He married her as soon as he could.

Plenty of humans feared the magic that they couldn't understand. Her second death had been kept under wraps, but even just after one resurrection there was little denying that Zelda's existence was no longer a natural one. When a blade planted itself in her body a second time it was an assassination, not an accident. Medics and maids rushed to her side with wraps and tonics the instant the Princess collapsed, but Ganondorf chased down the killer. She was a corpse by the time he returned, but he mourned little as he swept his wife's bloodied body away to his chambers in the palace.

This time she was not as enthusiastic to be alive. Merely relieved, and perhaps a bit baffled that her body seemed to be a few years younger than records claimed she had lived.

* * *

The disdain Ganondorf held for mortals only grew as he came to learn firsthand how fragile they were. His condescension was not directed at Zelda— _never her_ —only at her condition. Only at her body, that pathetic thing that gave out time and time again. Illness, infection, trauma, poison, murder, accidents, "natural causes", old age. Again and again, breath left her and her heart grew still, and again and again Ganondorf poured huge volumes of magic over her pallid form. Again and again, death unlatched its fingers from his lover. Again and again, each life sloughed something away from her.

So here they were now on one of Hyrule Castle's many precarious spires. Zelda, twenty-five but born two hundred years ago. Young and beautiful by all counts, but whatever it was that had made her beauty cause men to crumble had gone long ago. Nothing of Nayru or Hyrule Field's clear sky could be found in her eyes anymore. Though they bore the same color, they were hollow and frozen.

Every once and a while Ganondorf caught glimpses of her prime, or maybe the golden-washed instants were just memory. He thought he caught one now, a tiny glimpse of her bright eyes again as the wind whipped her hair around her face.

He was shocked by the fleeting views of her body the windblown cloak gave him. She kept herself so covered all the time now; he'd had no idea how translucent her skin was or how frail she was, nor how heavy the weight on her heart had become. He called out to her with one hand stretched out.

"Zelda! Come here, Love. Tell me what is on your mind, what is causing you so much pain. We can fix it together, I'm sure."

She cast him a heavy gaze. For a moment, he thought she was going to wrap her tiny hand in his.

* * *

A cry of utter despair was what woke Ganondorf from his slumber at her bedside. The glyphs around Zelda were as intricate as ever, detailing the procedure for knitting her flesh back together and fixing each warp in her bones. No one had yet managed to invent magic for the mind.

He jolted from his slumped posture in a chair and kneeled at her bedside, letting his face hover mere inches away from hers. He caressed her cheek tenderly, letting the teardrops he may have once choked back drip onto her pale skin. Even if he had proved a dozen times over that death held no profound impact upon her, each death of Zelda's tore at his heart sharply until he had successfully returned her to life. He kept her alive, and she kept him alive.

"Zelda, dearest, shhh. It's alright. I am here. All is well. You needn't worry about anything. You are alive."

She was quiet for many moments, so long that Ganondorf nearly wondered if she had fallen to sleep. But then suddenly she shook her head, the tears that had been trickling from her closed eyes shimmering on cheeks contorted in pain. "No…" He opened his mouth to speak words that did not come, confused. Though unaware of his bafflement, Zelda clarified for him soon. "No… I don't want this. I didn't want this." Her form jerked as heavy breathing hitched into a sob. The sound came shortly after, gasps and sobs and wails of deepest sorrow.

"Love, please. Hush, shhh, I'll comfort y— "

"Please… please let me die." His eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed. What nonsense was this? Yet at the same time, a whisper soft as the brush of a feather tip nudged his heart, a press he'd felt and wondered at before. A suggestion that maybe his actions had been wrong. "N-no, y-you won't," she continued. "Y-you've shown you can't do that. Don't let me die then." Ganondorf experienced a single moment of relief before she opened her eyes for the first time in this new life.

" _ **KILL ME!**_ "

He recoiled in horror. "I could never."

"No," she moaned, looking straight into his eyes. "You have to, Ganondorf. If you love me, if you ever loved me… How could you not see how much I suffer?" She was pleading him, _begging_.

"Zelda, no, you misunderstand. I save you so you can continue to live again. I bring you back for _you_."

She shook her head against the pillow, and Ganondorf had to look away. He couldn't look into those eyes, could not bear to see the purity of her sadness there. "You have always been selfish. If you think resurrecting me has ever been anything but that, you will never understand this. I've never been afraid to die. You never asked me anything, you never thought that perhaps I might like to consent to endless resurrection. You'd think that a suicide would finally get the message through but I guess not." Her voice had turned venomous.

"Zelda…" he breathed. He could already feel his heart splintering as she spoke the truth he had suspected and ignored for so long.

"You won't let anything else kill me. You won't allow _me_ to kill me. So it has to be you. Please, Ganondorf." She wrapped her hands around his and drew his fingertips off her cheek.

"Don't you love me? Don't you want to stay with me?"

"I do. I love you more than anything." Her eyes shone. "But I can't do this anymore. I'm not meant to be immortal, Ganondorf. I don't have the strength you do."

They gazed into each other's eyes for many long minutes, condensing all of time to share this sanguine moment.

Ganondorf kissed her as he slid the dagger from his belt.


End file.
